Dragon Ball Super Strength Discussion Thread

[ZombieVito]

Is it really that hard to believe for Chiaotzu to have improved his psychic powers the same way Tenshinhan improved his Kikoho?

Yes, lol. The gap between Chiaotzu and SSG Goku is MUCH MUCH greater than the gap between Tenshinhan and Semi-Perfect Cell. Tbh I doubt Chiaotzu could even hold Nappa for long.

Also Kikoho is much stronger than your average ki attack like Kamehameha since it actually drains one's life force as well, it doesn't just use ki. That explains why it was able to hold Cell back.

Goku's base is not SSG tier. They are around Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier.

In any case I just don't see the problem with him failing to hold Goku for more than 10 seconds.

[Chiki]

Is it really that hard to believe for Chiaotzu to have improved his psychic powers the same way Tenshinhan improved his Kikoho?

Yes, lol. The gap between Chiaotzu and SSG Goku is MUCH MUCH greater than the gap between Tenshinhan and Semi-Perfect Cell. Tbh I doubt Chiaotzu could even hold Nappa for long.

Also Kikoho is much stronger than your average ki attack like Kamehameha since it actually drains one's life force as well, it doesn't just use ki. That explains why it was able to hold Cell back.

Goku's base is not SSG tier. They are around Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier.

In any case I just don't see the problem with him failing to hold Goku for more than 10 seconds.

I don't know how you guys can make up stuff like this. There's absolutely zero evidence that SSG Goku is Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier and all the evidence in the world that he is SSG tier.

1. Ultimate Gohan got owned by less than 10% Beerus without Beerus even touching him. Base Goku put up an excellent fight and didn't lose against a 100% serious Beerus (though he was limited in power and speed due to the costume).
2. Base Vegeta, who is equal to Base Goku, took no damage from and owned SS3 Gotenks like he was nothing.
3. Super Saiyan Gohan in the RoF arc defeated Tagoma in multiple hits. Base Vegeta killed him in one blast.
4. RoF Gohan got absolutely owned by FIRST FORM Frieza. Base Goku was stronger than Final Form Frieza.
5. Vegeta was stated to have reached SSG power by himself according to Goku. If Base Goku isn't SSG level, then why would he have said that?

All that, coupled with Toriyama's own statement back when BoG came out that Goku has access to his SSG power (which clearly hasn't been retconned due to all of the evidence I gave above).

[Bullza]

They're supposed to be as strong as SSJG in base, they practically said as much.

The question is if Base is equal to SSJG then is Super Saiyan 50 times as strong as SSJG?

[HeroR]

They're supposed to be as strong as SSJG in base, they practically said as much.

The question is if Base is equal to SSJG then is Super Saiyan 50 times as strong as SSJG?

I personally see it going two ways:

1) Their base forms are exactly Super Saiyan God = base form and they get their 50X multiplier when they go Super Saiyan, making the original Super Saiyan form Super Saiyan God + before they merge it with god power.

2) Their base forms are no quite as powerful as Super Saiyan God and they need to turn into Super Saiyan to get the full power of Super Saiyan God. Which makes their base forms 50X weaker than Super Saiyan God, but since Super Saiyan God was such a huge power boast, their base forms are still much stronger than anyone from the Buu Saga outside of maybe Super Saiyan 3 Vegetto (which is a guess since we have no clue what was Vegetto's upper limit in the Buu Saga).

I tend to lean towards number one, but it seems that Super Saiyan Goku was equal to Super Saiyan God, and his power did drop after he lost the transformation, but was still fairly strong since he punched and shattered Beerus' last attack in his base form. Even going by the movie, base form Goku was able to land hits on Beerus, but he really powered up after he transformed. So, it could be number 2.

[ZombieVito]

Goku's base is not SSG tier. They are around Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier.

In any case I just don't see the problem with him failing to hold Goku for more than 10 seconds.

I don't know how you guys can make up stuff like this. There's absolutely zero evidence that SSG Goku is Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier and all the evidence in the world that he is SSG tier.

1. Ultimate Gohan got owned by less than 10% Beerus without Beerus even touching him. Base Goku put up an excellent fight and didn't lose against a 100% serious Beerus (though he was limited in power and speed due to the costume).
2. Base Vegeta, who is equal to Base Goku, took no damage from and owned SS3 Gotenks like he was nothing.
3. Super Saiyan Gohan in the RoF arc defeated Tagoma in multiple hits. Base Vegeta killed him in one blast.
4. RoF Gohan got absolutely owned by FIRST FORM Frieza. Base Goku was stronger than Final Form Frieza.
5. Vegeta was stated to have reached SSG power by himself according to Goku. If Base Goku isn't SSG level, then why would he have said that?

All that, coupled with Toriyama's own statement back when BoG came out that Goku has access to his SSG power (which clearly hasn't been retconned due to all of the evidence I gave above).

Watch episode 45 again. It's clear as day they are not SSG tier in base. Unless of course you think Gotenks has godlike endurance to be able to resist the full 5 minutes against a SSG tier opponent that was trying to kill him.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Even though base Goku & Vegeta appear to have 1/50th of the power of SSG in the Super anime, Copy-Vegeta was holding back against Gotenks, since later powers up against Goku in the end of the same episode.

[LowRyder2005]

I mean, you can have all form of Frost vastly inferior to a "serious/ fully-powered" Base Goku, and a 100% Piccolo (who is going all-out) slightly inferior to a tired Frost who is still trying to save energy. ... And it works.

Except it really doesn't? There was no real indication that base Goku was using 1% or whatever of his power against Assault Frost, while we actually got somewhat explicit confirmation that Goku and Vegeta were screwing around with Botamo and Cabba. Furthermore even the tired final form Frost was enough to force Vegeta to go SS to win. You can say Vegeta just wanted to show off... but that doesn't really make sense. Why go SS if his base was enough? That would make him look stronger. Or if he's just trying to display his power, why not go full SSB? The fact that he reverts, fights Cabba in base, and then goes SS again rather than just staying in SS pretty much clinches it for me. At the very least "tires Frost" is around base Vegeta.

I just don't think "they were massively holding back the whole time and no one mentioned it" really works here.

In the anime, against Assault Frost, Goku apparently has kind of an equal fight. Than he takes some dust off his gi says that he's a slow starter (so he's still warming up, just like against Botamo) and that he knew both he and Frost were saving energy for the other fights.
In short, Goku is both going easy (because he wants to save his strenght) and is still doing his calisthenics against him.
Then he says transforms in Super Saiyan as in a "I'm gonna show you my hand, what about you" move, and he's overwhelming Frost while barely trying. We don't exactly have all the reasons to believe that Assault Form Frost is equal to a serious base Goku.

Plus, Goku actually doesn't power-up at all in-between the Botamo and Frost fight. So there's no reason to believe that, other than playing nicer against Botamo, there's such a gigantic gap between Botamo, 1st and 3rd form Frost (leaving Final aside, since he's just matched against a far more powerful opponent), and Cabba.

[buutenks]

Well either way i think copy vegeta was holding back vs gotenks, since he hit him while gotenks was in base form and gotenks wasnt koed.

[Chiki]

Goku's base is not SSG tier. They are around Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier.

In any case I just don't see the problem with him failing to hold Goku for more than 10 seconds.

I don't know how you guys can make up stuff like this. There's absolutely zero evidence that SSG Goku is Ultimate Gohan-Buuhan tier and all the evidence in the world that he is SSG tier.

1. Ultimate Gohan got owned by less than 10% Beerus without Beerus even touching him. Base Goku put up an excellent fight and didn't lose against a 100% serious Beerus (though he was limited in power and speed due to the costume).
2. Base Vegeta, who is equal to Base Goku, took no damage from and owned SS3 Gotenks like he was nothing.
3. Super Saiyan Gohan in the RoF arc defeated Tagoma in multiple hits. Base Vegeta killed him in one blast.
4. RoF Gohan got absolutely owned by FIRST FORM Frieza. Base Goku was stronger than Final Form Frieza.
5. Vegeta was stated to have reached SSG power by himself according to Goku. If Base Goku isn't SSG level, then why would he have said that?

All that, coupled with Toriyama's own statement back when BoG came out that Goku has access to his SSG power (which clearly hasn't been retconned due to all of the evidence I gave above).

Watch episode 45 again. It's clear as day they are not SSG tier in base. Unless of course you think Gotenks has godlike endurance to be able to resist the full 5 minutes against a SSG tier opponent that was trying to kill him.

Copy Vegeta was holding back since Gotenks is his son's fusion. Duh.

[LowRyder2005]

The only reason we have to believe Copy Vegeta wasn't going all out is simply because we see him powering up a little against Goku.
Not like he didn't want to hurt his son, though. He was just about to kill him before Goku appeared. Fighting at 50% or something could be a good estimation, to me, since Vegeta acts like Gotenks could at least stall Copy Vegeta or manage something against him. As usual, though, DBS really lacks meaningful visual cues.

[Chiki]

The only reason we have to believe Copy Vegeta wasn't going all out is simply because we see him powering up a little against Goku.
Not like he didn't want to hurt his son, though. He was just about to kill him before Goku appeared. Fighting at 50% or something could be a good estimation, to me. As usual, though, DBS really lacks meaningful visual cues.

Erm, that's not why I thought he wasn't going all out. He hesitated to absorb Trunks's power and let them get away.

[LowRyder2005]

The only reason we have to believe Copy Vegeta wasn't going all out is simply because we see him powering up a little against Goku.
Not like he didn't want to hurt his son, though. He was just about to kill him before Goku appeared. Fighting at 50% or something could be a good estimation, to me. As usual, though, DBS really lacks meaningful visual cues.

Erm, that's not why I thought he wasn't going all out. He hesitated to absorb Trunks's power and let them get away.

Yeah, actually, all things considered, it looks to me like he was more favorable to the prospect of killing them both than absorbing them.

[Chiki]

The only reason we have to believe Copy Vegeta wasn't going all out is simply because we see him powering up a little against Goku.
Not like he didn't want to hurt his son, though. He was just about to kill him before Goku appeared. Fighting at 50% or something could be a good estimation, to me. As usual, though, DBS really lacks meaningful visual cues.

Erm, that's not why I thought he wasn't going all out. He hesitated to absorb Trunks's power and let them get away.

Yeah, actually, all things considered, it looks to me like he was more favorable to the prospect of killing them both than absorbing them.

There's hardly a difference between the two things since Trunks dies either way?

[LowRyder2005]

There's hardly a difference between the two things since Trunks dies either way?

I'm not arguing this. Point is that if he ultimately wanted to spare Trunks' life he wouldn't have tried to gratuitously kill him with a ki attack at point-blank range.
It's apparent that he either disregards Trunks' safety throughout the fight or that he feels more comfortable killing Trunks than absorbing him. It's not like I have to answer for the logic (or lack thereof) of Copy-Vegeta's actions here, I'm just piecing back what's been shown.

By the way...

Base Goku put up an excellent fight and didn't lose against a 100% serious Beerus (though he was limited in power and speed due to the costume).

If Base is equal to Beerus, this would mean that Super Saiyan Goku is already stronger than Beerus. We know that not even Super Saiyan Blue + Kaioken * 10 is enough; Beerus being at full power sounds like an impossibility.

Actually, if Beerus was even a little serious, wouldn't if he have inadvertently destroyed the paper-made costume like nothing?

[RandomGuy96]

I mean, you can have all form of Frost vastly inferior to a "serious/ fully-powered" Base Goku, and a 100% Piccolo (who is going all-out) slightly inferior to a tired Frost who is still trying to save energy. ... And it works.

Except it really doesn't? There was no real indication that base Goku was using 1% or whatever of his power against Assault Frost, while we actually got somewhat explicit confirmation that Goku and Vegeta were screwing around with Botamo and Cabba. Furthermore even the tired final form Frost was enough to force Vegeta to go SS to win. You can say Vegeta just wanted to show off... but that doesn't really make sense. Why go SS if his base was enough? That would make him look stronger. Or if he's just trying to display his power, why not go full SSB? The fact that he reverts, fights Cabba in base, and then goes SS again rather than just staying in SS pretty much clinches it for me. At the very least "tires Frost" is around base Vegeta.

I just don't think "they were massively holding back the whole time and no one mentioned it" really works here.

In the anime, against Assault Frost, Goku apparently has kind of an equal fight. Than he takes some dust off his gi says that he's a slow starter (so he's still warming up, just like against Botamo) and that he knew both he and Frost were saving energy for the other fights.
In short, Goku is both going easy (because he wants to save his strenght) and is still doing his calisthenics against him.
Then he says transforms in Super Saiyan as in a "I'm gonna show you my hand, what about you" move, and he's overwhelming Frost while barely trying. We don't exactly have all the reasons to believe that Assault Form Frost is equal to a serious base Goku.

But Assault Form Frost actually fought and had a slight advantage over base Goku. It's implied that he wasn't trying quite as hard as he could, but not that he was using 1% or whatever of his power. Plus, "tired final form Frost" was still at least around base Goku's strength if not stronger judging by the fact that Vegeta needed SS to beat him, and Piccolo wasn't many times weaker than him. Piccolo also thought that a fight between himself and a similarly exhausted third form Frost would be close-ish, or at least more fair than himself vs final form Frost, so apparently there's not a huge difference between his 3rd and 4th form.

Plus, Goku actually doesn't power-up at all in-between the Botamo and Frost fight. So there's no reason to believe that, other than playing nicer against Botamo, there's such a gigantic gap between Botamo, 1st and 3rd form Frost (leaving Final aside, since he's just matched against a far more powerful opponent), and Cabba.

A decent point, since Goku in the Botamo fight is explicitly fighting below full capacity. But there's two problems: one, Goku can power up without making a show of it, and often does so. Two, there actually has to be a big gap between Botamo and Cabba/first form Frost (Cabba regards Frost's power with respect, even labeling him the Emperor of the Universe and their universe's best hand to hand fighter, and is seemingly subservient to him, despite being as surprised as Champa when he shows he can transform) since Cabba pretty much outright says that even he is a heck of a lot stronger than the Goku that fought Botamo:

Episode 33
Minute: 4
Context Goku is unable to faze Botamo.
Champa: "He's just as pathetic as he looked when I saw him at Beerus' palace."
Cabba: "He and I are both Saiyans, but to think Universes 6 and 7 differ this much..."

See, my main problem is that we actually receive explicit confirmation that Goku and Vegeta were holding back against Botamo and Cabba respectively (Vegeta can no-sell hits from Cabba in equivalent forms, Goku is said by Cabba to be under-performing to an extent that Cabba believes himself to be far more powerful than Goku). We don't get anything of the sort for Frost, and later evidence (read: Vegeta bothering to transform against him) suggests that the fight was legitimate. So I think what we see is what we get: Assault Form Frost has a slight advantage against base Goku, final form Frost is stronger than base Goku, but not many times stronger. Goku may not have been going full force in the sense that he wasn't fighting aggressively, but he was still at his base's regular power level.

Something like this:

Final Form Frost: 100
Assault Form Frost: 75
Second Form Frost: 50
First Form Frost: 25

Tired Frost: 80-ish
Cabba: 20-ish
Botamo: 10-ish

Base Goku/Vegeta: 70
-vs Cabba: 20-ish
-vs Botamo: 10-ish
Piccolo: 60

Even though base Goku & Vegeta appear to have 1/50th of the power of SSG in the Super anime,

I've heard that it was stated that their SS forms are as powerful as as their SSG, and that the only difference between SS and SSB is that SSB doesn't let as much ki drain. Where are these things actually said?

Copy-Vegeta was holding back against Gotenks, since later powers up against Goku in the end of the same episode.

That's not really proof. We've seen characters use their full powers, then drop down immediately after, only to power up back to full a few minutes later for another fight. Especially in the anime; it doesn't mean he was using a fraction of his power against Gotenks. Furthermore "powering up" isn't really necessary at this point unless the character in question wants to make a show, we know they can go from a power level of 5 to their full levels (or the reverse) in less than a second with no visual cues. So we know that he wasn't necessarily increasing his power at all.

Yeah, actually, all things considered, it looks to me like he was more favorable to the prospect of killing them both than absorbing them.

Yes, he was very specifically serious about killing them, but he saw absorption as something he'd never do because it contradicted his pride, not because he didn't want to kill Trunks. He practically says as much when he kills Copy Gryll.

[LowRyder2005]

Like I said before, I think the only possible hole in the theory is Vegeta going Super Saiyan as a possible indicator of an inability to beat Frost. It's definitely a thing out of my place in my framework.

Regarding the rest, while I can definitely see your points I'm still more inclined to put Piccolo around the "potentially much weaker Base Goku with Ki disease" and a full regime Base Form Goku beating Assault Form and Piccolo rather easily, alongside Tired Final Frost apparently losing a lot of energy and still fighting in a "saving energy mode" against Piccolo. I think that if they wanted to portray Piccolo stronger than a Super Saiyan 3 they would have ended up saving at least one line or give him a clear/clean win over a healthy and powerful opponent, for bragging rights and whatnot (I still see Piccolo casually remarking that Gotenks could do something he couldn't, in short).

The quote about Cabbe (gah, still trying to use this as it appears to be something like a semi-official spelling) judging Base Goku is very interesting though, and something I had overlooked. I should rewatch the scenes.
Judging Goku's words, though, it still appears to me Goku was still warming up against Assault Frost. I'm lead to believe that he was stronger than vs. Botamo and Base Vegeta vs. Cabbe.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

I've heard that it was stated that their SS forms are as powerful as as their SSG, and that the only difference between SS and SSB is that SSB doesn't let as much ki drain. Where are these things actually said?

After Goku absorbed the power of SSG, it was stated that his SS form was exactly as strong as SSG, and SSB is stated to be a form that surpasses SSG, meaning that it's stronger than SS/SSG. SS appears to still be giving the regular x50 boost, since Vegeta & Cabba were relatively close in power when they were in the same form, and Cabba is a regular (yet powerful) Saiyan with no SSG powers (Vegeta was stated to have obtained the power of SSG through Whis' training). Base Goku & Vegeta (& Copy-Vegeta) have also displayed feats that place them far above a regular Super Saiyan 3.

All these are true for the anime only. The movie & manga continuities have each shown different things.

That's not really proof. We've seen characters use their full powers, then drop down immediately after, only to power up back to full a few minutes later for another fight. Especially in the anime; it doesn't mean he was using a fraction of his power against Gotenks. Furthermore "powering up" isn't really necessary at this point unless the character in question wants to make a show, we know they can go from a power level of 5 to their full levels (or the reverse) in less than a second with no visual cues. So we know that he wasn't necessarily increasing his power at all.

But why would we assume that he powered down? There is no indication, nor any reason to assume such a thing, unless if I miss something.

[RandomGuy96]

I've heard that it was stated that their SS forms are as powerful as as their SSG, and that the only difference between SS and SSB is that SSB doesn't let as much ki drain. Where are these things actually said?

After Goku absorbed the power of SSG, it was stated that his SS form was exactly as strong as SSG,

What episode and minute was that stated? Got a quote?

and SSB is stated to be a form that surpasses SSG, meaning that it's stronger than SS/SSG.

But why does that have to be a raw reference to one form being stronger than the other, rather than Goku just being stronger than he was, or the form being better in ways besides raw power output a la SS vs MSS? Heck, if anything that makes a hell of a lot more sense in context.

Narrator: "In order to surpass the powered up Freeza, Goku mutated into a form that exceeded even Super Saiyan God."

SSB "exceeding" SSG is said in the same breath as SSB "surpassing" the powered up Freeza... except we know that SSB Goku wasn't literally stronger than Freeza. But he did have one important advantage that Freeza didn't: very good stamina and lack of energy drain. Effectively making him a much more effective combatant despite being slightly weaker. In a similar light, SSB would be better than SSG even if they were the exact same strength, because it isn't limited to a few minutes like SSG due to not leaking so much ki. If Goku was limited to that form, even if it had the exact same power as he did when he fought Freeza, he most likely would've lost.

Finally, Episode 20 has this moment:
Minute: 8
Whis: “You two! Your heightened ki is spilling out all around you. You must heighten it only within yourselves, so that your opponent can't sense it.”
SSG Goku had a big flaming aura, and we see Beerus’ aura a few times too, both of which would presumably count as ki “leaking out”. After hearing this advice, there’s a weird blue flash when Goku and Vegeta punch each other, clearly a reference to SSB.

Then later during the fight with Freeza we receive this tidbit for the tenth time, word for word from the movie:
Goku: "Actually, that's not quite right. It's a little complicated and hard to explain, but... This is a Saiyan with the power of a Super Saiyan God as a Super Saiyan."

I mean, shouldn't the latter count as a direct statement that SSG ~ SSB? If SS ~ SSG now, then there's not actually a difference in power between those forms. Alternatively it could count as explicit confirmation that Goku's base/SS is much weaker than it was during the first fight with Beers. Since base <<<< SS <<<< SSB ~ SSG, rather than base =< SS ~ SSG ~ SSB

...

Huh. I think my tangent just produced some interesting results.

SS appears to still be giving the regular x50 boost, since Vegeta & Cabba were relatively close in power when they were in the same form, and Cabba is a regular (yet powerful) Saiyan with no SSG powers (Vegeta was stated to have obtained the power of SSG through Whis' training). Base Goku & Vegeta (& Copy-Vegeta) have also displayed feats that place them far above a regular Super Saiyan 3.

Problem: SS Vegeta tanks a full force running kick to the head from Cabba and doesn't so much as flinch, implying that he's actually a heck of a lot stronger than Cabba is (in the anime at least). Contextually it obviously makes sense for SS to be x50, as he's comparing his form to the original SS recently achieved by Cabba. But I don't think there's explicit confirmation here. All we know for sure is that there's a sizable difference.

Additionally if we're assuming SS ~ SSG, then the direct statement of SSG ~ SSB should mean that there's no difference in power between SSB and SS. So "full power" SS Vegeta would be worlds above SS Cabba, same way his SSB incarnation was.

But why would we assume that he powered down? There is no indication, nor any reason to assume such a thing, unless if I miss something.

The fact that he was clearly trying to kill Gotenks, and seemed annoyed at him (so it's very unlikely that he'd let Gotenks, say, block his punches), is a pretty good reason to assume he wasn't just using a fraction of his power.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

What episode and minute was that stated? Got a quote?

Episode 13
Minute: 23
Context: Beerus points out to Goku that he’s no longer Super Saiyan God
Beerus: “You’re out of time, aren’t you? After all, your Super Saiyan God aura has vanished! You’re a bit slow on the uptake.”
Goku: “Huh? When did that happen? But I don’t feel like I’ve gotten weaker at all! What’s going on, Beerus-sama?”
Beerus: “Don’t ask me!”
Goku: “But you’re a god, right?”
Beerus: “Well, it seems that the power of Super Saiyan God didn’t just vanish when time ran out. The power has fully merged with you and become your own. God’s crimson radiance still burns inside you like a flame.”

But why does that have to be a raw reference to one form being stronger than the other, rather than Goku just being stronger than he was, or the form being better in ways besides raw power output a la SS vs MSS? Heck, if anything that makes a hell of a lot more sense in context.

Narrator: "In order to surpass the powered up Freeza, Goku mutated into a form that exceeded even Super Saiyan God."

SSB "exceeding" SSG is said in the same breath as SSB "surpassing" the powered up Freeza... except we know that SSB Goku wasn't literally stronger than Freeza. But he did have one important advantage that Freeza didn't: very good stamina and lack of energy drain. Effectively making him a much more effective combatant despite being slightly weaker. In a similar light, SSB would be better than SSG even if they were the exact same strength, because it isn't limited to a few minutes like SSG due to not leaking so much ki. If Goku was limited to that form, even if it had the exact same power as he did when he fought Freeza, he most likely would've lost.

Finally, Episode 20 has this moment:
Minute: 8
Whis: “You two! Your heightened ki is spilling out all around you. You must heighten it only within yourselves, so that your opponent can't sense it.”
SSG Goku had a big flaming aura, and we see Beerus’ aura a few times too, both of which would presumably count as ki “leaking out”. After hearing this advice, there’s a weird blue flash when Goku and Vegeta punch each other, clearly a reference to SSB.

Then later during the fight with Freeza we receive this tidbit for the tenth time, word for word from the movie:
Goku: "Actually, that's not quite right. It's a little complicated and hard to explain, but... This is a Saiyan with the power of a Super Saiyan God as a Super Saiyan."

I mean, shouldn't the latter count as a direct statement that SSG ~ SSB? If SS ~ SSG now, then there's not actually a difference in power between those forms. Alternatively it could count as explicit confirmation that Goku's base/SS is much weaker than it was during the first fight with Beers. Since base <<<< SS <<<< SSB ~ SSG, rather than base =< SS ~ SSG ~ SSB

Goku had already surpassed Super Saiyan God, in the sense that he was stronger than he was as a Super Saiyan God, right after his fight with Beerus.

Episode 15
Minute: 5
Context: Vegeta stands out in the middle of nowhere, reflecting on Goku's fight with Beerus.
Vegeta: "He surpassed it. Super Saiyan God. The level of gods."

Also, Super Saiyan Blue actually drains stamina:

Episode 38
Context: Goku readies himself to fight Hit.
　17:06 | Hit: "You forgot to transform."
　17:09 | Goku: "Oh, that drains my stamina real bad, so I'll do that later."
　17:14 | Goku: "I ain't figured out how to beat you yet, so I wanna buy as much time as I can."

Super Saiyan God doesn't drain stamina though, it just ends or gets absorbed after a certain amount of time, the power doesn't fall steadily during that certain amount of time.

Problem: SS Vegeta tanks a full force running kick to the head from Cabba and doesn't so much as flinch, implying that he's actually a heck of a lot stronger than Cabba is (in the anime at least). Contextually it obviously makes sense for SS to be x50, as he's comparing his form to the original SS recently achieved by Cabba. But I don't think there's explicit confirmation here. All we know for sure is that there's a sizable difference.

Well, we see that base Cabba is a match for base Vegeta, then SS Cabba is a match for SS Vegeta, and then we learn that Vegeta was holding back all this time, and also has SSB on top of that. I don't see any reason to assume that they give different increases, especially since Vegeta doesn't mention anything special about his own SS form.

The fact that he was clearly trying to kill Gotenks, and seemed annoyed at him (so it's very unlikely that he'd let Gotenks, say, block his punches), is a pretty good reason to assume he wasn't just using a fraction of his power.

But he was already using a small fraction of his power, since he was holding back SS & SSB. Just because he wanted to kill him doesn't mean he is at 100%, he is just using enough power to do so, and we see that he was strong enough to do that, just not with a single hit. Freeza wanted to kill Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Kuririn, and Goku, but he was using less than half of his power. If Copy-Vegeta wanted to one-shot Gotenks, he would have done it.

[RandomGuy96]

Goku had already surpassed Super Saiyan God, in the sense that he was stronger than he was as a Super Saiyan God, right after his fight with Beerus.

Episode 15
Minute: 5
Context: Vegeta stands out in the middle of nowhere, reflecting on Goku's fight with Beerus.
Vegeta: "He surpassed it. Super Saiyan God. The level of gods."

That's also clearly not a literal statement of strength. It's a reference to the "Saiyan Who Has Surpassed God" label for his post-god base. We know for a fact that that THAT form was still weaker than SSG.

Of course, even if he was stronger than SSG, it wouldn't invalidate his later statement that SSB = SSG (that statement is word for word from the movie too, lending it additional validity), it would just mean he got stronger in base and that if he used SSG now he'd be equally as strong as SSB.

More explicit proof that base/SS/SSG doesn't work the same as it does during the Beerus fight: SSB is explicitly said to be as powerful as SSG. SSB Vegeta is said to be a lot stronger than SS Vegeta, when going by the logic of the Beerus fight they should be identical in power. Additionally, in the Beerus fight there was basically no difference in power between base and SS. While in the tournament, the Frost and Cabba fights clearly present an enormous difference between base and SS. The Cabba fight has the implied x50 multiplier, while the Frost fight has base Goku being on the losing end of the bout with 3rd form Frost while SS Goku absolutely mauls 4th form Frost with much less than his full power.

Also, Super Saiyan Blue actually drains stamina:
Super Saiyan God doesn't drain stamina though, it just ends or gets absorbed after a certain amount of time, the power doesn't fall steadily during that certain amount of time.

Of course it does, but it doesn't drain it by a lot. It's pretty much the same story as MSS.

SSG on the other hand has a clear time limit.

Well, we see that base Cabba is a match for base Vegeta, then SS Cabba is a match for SS Vegeta, and then we learn that Vegeta was holding back all this time, and also has SSB on top of that. I don't see any reason to assume that they give different increases, especially since Vegeta doesn't mention anything special about his own SS form.

Yes, but I was asking if there was actually explicit proof of that, rather than supposition.

EDIT: In addition to not even flinching from Cabba's punch, he also sits still, smiles, and lets Cabba pelt him with dozens of ki blasts, to absolutely no effect.

But he was already using a small fraction of his power, since he was holding back SS & SSB. Just because he wanted to kill him doesn't mean he is at 100%, he is just using enough power to do so, and we see that he was strong enough to do that, just not with a single hit. Freeza wanted to kill Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, Kuririn, and Goku, but he was using less than half of his power. If Copy-Vegeta wanted to one-shot Gotenks, he would have done it.

He has a reason not to transform: just being in the state drains stamina (same logic as not breaking it out for every fight at the tournament). On the other hand there's really no logic for not one-shotting Gotenks if he can in base. There's especially no sense in letting Gotenks block punches.

Additionally no one at any point notes he changed his battle power when he fights Goku, which would have been pretty important to mention. if he was "suppressed", then it would also be peculiar for Goku to suppress himself to the exact same level to fight him at first, rather than being at full power in base. Nor would it make any sense for Goku to not note he was suppressed, either when fighting him or when sensing his ki from Kaio's planet and coming to the conclusion that Vegeta's trying to kill Gotenks.